Ultra-steep-slope transistor enabled by an atomic memristive switch

An ultra-compact 3D memristive atomic switch is co-integrated with a field-effect transistor (FET). The combined devices outperform similar state-of-the-art arrangements. The integrated transistor operates with an extremely sharp switching slope of below 3 mV/dec, low leakage below pA and a high current on/off ratio I_on/I_off < 10⁶. Moreover, our atomic switch features a < 10 ns switching and a < 300 mV operating voltage. Most importantly, the atomic switch has a small footprint of < 10 nm by 10 nm in line with the extreme feature size of the current FET technologies. Thus, this design could addresses the future needs of integrated circuits (ICs) for high integration density at low power consumption.